New militant outfit discovered with the arrest of missing youths: RAB

The Rapid Action Batallion (RAB) has come to know about a new extremist outfit called "Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya" in the country after several missing youths who secretly joined the organization were arrested.

The organisation started operating back in 2017, gathering members from various banned militant groups. In 2019, it was renamed "Jama'atul Ansar fil Hindal Sharqiya," said Khandaker Al Moin, legal and media wing director of RAB, at a press briefing in Dhaka on Thursday after arresting seven leaders and operatives of the new outfit in raids across different parts of the country.

According to RAB, the militant group was preparing for armed attacks, recruiting people from different parts of the country and training them in several stages.

The regional leaders of this radical group recruit operatives mainly through theoretical discussions, infuriating people against the government, law enforcement, and the constitution, and promising to serve Islam, said RAB.

Khandaker Al Moin said the youths left their homes for hijrah (In Islam, it means "to give up one's own land" or "to migrate from one place to another place" mostly for the sake of Deen/faith and Allah) and secretly joined the group.

"Not much information could be retrieved from the arrested regional commanders. The arrested only know about the group's activities to a limited extent," Moin said.

The arrested are Boni Amin, Nesar Uddin alias Umayer, Hussain Ahmed, Imtiaz Ahmed Rifat, Md Sabit, Hasibul Islam, and Roman Sikder.

Boni Amin, a madrasa teacher, was arrested from Patuakhali. Based on the information provided by him, RAB arrested Nesar Uddin alias Umayer, a scientific officer at a government office in Bhola, from an area near the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway.

Later, based on information provided by the two, RAB arrested the other five militants from Siddhirganj in Narayanganj.   

Of them, Hussain, Nesar, and Boni, are recruiters of the militant group while Rifat and Hasib left their homes in Cumilla on 23 August for hijrah, Moin said.

The RAB director said they were given physical and organisational training step by step in remote char areas of Bhola and Patuakhali.

Apart from organisational training, they were given technical training to disguise themselves in different professions, he said. 

Three types of pamphlets of the neo-militant organisation, a booklet of instructions for making explosives, the modus operandi of the outfit (draft), four copies of the extremist book Nedaye Tawhid, and a tab with videos related to extremism were recovered from them.